Water is dripping into the bottom of my fridge. I have cleaned and vacumned the coils. How do I access the drain to see if it is frozen?

If water leaks inside your refrigerator
(and it WILL, at some point) you can fix
it yourself. My 26 year old fridge was leaking
and I fixed it completely. It is a Kenmore
top freezer, bottom refrigerator model.

In the good old models, one had to defrost the
fridge every few months manually.

In the recent models, the fridge defrosts automatically,
once or twice a day, and the water is supposed to drain
down a long drain tube into a pan located at the bottom of
the fridge. This collected water in the pan evaporates
by the heat under the fridge.

Now the drain tube can get clogged, by food debris and/or
ice. Thus when the water cannot drip through the drain tube
the water drips inside the fridge.

The drain tube is located behind the fridge, which is pretty
easy to take it out and clean. However usually the clog is
not in the long tube but in the connector assembly located
in the backside of the fridge that leads to the long drain tube.

To get to the connector assembly, you need to unscrew and
take out the back panel of the freezer compartment. You would
see the evaporator coil and a tray under the coil where the water
is supposed to drip through. If you find the tray completely frozen
with ice, let it melt off. To speed up melting, you may blow
hot air via a hair dryer. Once the ice is clear, you should see
a drain hole in the middle of the tray. This could be clogged,
which needs to be unclogged.

Next unscrew and open the thermostat control assembly located
in the inside of the back of the refrigerator compartment just above
the light bulb fixture. Once you take the cover off (you will
also have to take the knobs out) you will see a small tray cup about
2" x 2" x 1/2" into which water from the top freezer compartment
drain hole is supposed to drain. Pull out the tray cup, and if clogged,
unclog it, clean it and put it back.

To check if the drain works ok, pour some water on the tray
under the evaporator coil (top freezer compartment) and see if it
immediately drains into the tray located at the bottom of the fridge
at the floor level. If it does, you got it; and you can assemble things
back in the reverse order you took the pieces apart.

Needless to say, use a vacuum cleaner with a long suction tube to clean
out all the collected mess under the fridge. No matter how good
your housekeeping is, the bottom of the fridge will be full of dust.
With lot of patience (I mean lots of it) you should be saving hundreds
of dollars. Attached are some pictures I took. Call me before you dig !